Down Home and Deadly (22 page)

She waited to make sure I was inside before leaving the
c
lub parking lot. Ordinarily I would think that was overkill, but with a real killer on the loose, I wasn’t complaining. The thought of a
“
real killer
”
sent a shiver down my spine and made me glad to hear the hum of voices in the exercise room.

I shivered again when I started looking at the mess that Lisa had left. Her housekeeping skills were on par with her management skills
—a
lthough I had a feeling it was more of a
n
“
I
don’t care
”
attitude than not being
able
to do it.

After I’d been cleaning for a while, Dave stuck his head in the door. “I’m about to lock up. You want me to wait for you?”

“No, thanks. I’ve still got a little more to do here.”

He nodded. “Rumor has it there’s a ghost in here late at night, so if you hear anything, get your cell
phone ready to take a pic.”

“If I saw a ghost, the last thing I’d be worried about would be taking its picture.”

He shrugged. “Your loss. A photo of a real ghost would sell for no telling how much.”

“I’d rather just have peace and quiet and get my job done. But thanks.” I glanced back at the stack of junk I was sorting through then thought of something. “Oh, and Dave
.
 
.
 
.
”

He stuck his head back in the door. “Yeah?”

“Thanks for spooking me before I get locked in here by myself.”

“Spook the legendary Jenna Stafford? No way.”

He laughed all the way down the hall. I threw myself back into cleaning. I should have turned some music on, because as soon as I knew he was gone, I started hearing little noises. Creaking noises, swishing noises, ceiling fan noises.

A scraping sound from the back
door
might as well have been a cannon shot.
T
hat’s the kind of noise that puts all other noises to shame. The kind you can’t ignore or explain away. That was definitely something. I cautiously peeped over the top of the cabinet I didn’t realize I’d ducked behind.

I heard
footsteps
,
and they were coming this way. No way anyone would have any business in the back room of the club after hours. Well,
no one
but a cleaning freak like me. Unfortunately
,
the cabinet
was
too small for me to crawl into. I wished I’d closed the hall door when I came in here, but all I’d had on my mind was getting the place aired out and cleaned up.

Suddenly
,
it hit me. Mama had been wrong. All those times she’d warned me about curiosity leading to an unhappy ending for me, she should have told me that cleaning would be the death of me. That would have saved me a lot of prune hands and sore knees over the years. And tonight it might have saved my life.

The footsteps stopped at the door. I wondered if my foot was sticking out beyond the edge of the cabinet. If I drew it in, would it make noise? Speaking of noise, was that whistling? A whistling killer?
“
Yankee Doodle,
”
no less. Forget my whole death
-
by
-
cleaning theory. Mama was right, as usual. Curiosity would kill me. But I had to look. I borrowed a trick from Tiffany and prayed that my “hand” gun would be as unnecessary as hers had been.

I swung out from behind the cabinet in one fluid motion
,
bringing my fake gun out in front of me. “Who’s there?” I said in my most commanding voice to the shadow in the hallway.

“It is
Marco
! Who is there?” His voice trembled.

My taut muscles went limp. “It’s Jenna.”

He stuck his head inside the doorway
,
and his eyes widened. “What are you doing here?”

“I think that’s my line. I work here.” I frowned. “If I remember correctly, you don’t.”

“I can explain.” He walked into the room, his face suffused with color. “Or I could, but I do not want to get someone into trouble.”

I crossed my arms in front of me. “Well, ‘someone’
is
in trouble. It’s you. So you’d better start explaining.” I was still shaky from the fright he’d given me, which made me sound tougher than I felt. “You came in the back door. Did you break the lock?”

“No.”
Marco
sounded shocked at the idea. “I did not break it. That would be wrong.”

“Then how did you get in?”

“I used the key.” He dangled a key in front of my face. I snatched it from his hand.

“
Where
did you get this key?” I demanded.

“W
–
well,” he backed up as if he still believed I had a gun. “I
—
I will tell you.”

“Yes. You certainly will tell me.”

“Promise not to get her into trouble,” he said.

“I can’t make any promises until I know the whole story.”

He gave it serious consideration then sent me a tentative smile. “I trust you.”

I was pretty sure I knew by now who had given him the key. “Sorry I was so sharp with you, but you scared me to death.”

“I did not know you were here. I would have been quiet
er
.”

“
Don’t worry about it
. Just tell me why you’re here.”

“I live here.”

I’d thought the shock of him walking in on me had been the biggest shock of the night, but I was obviously wrong.

“
Marco
, you can’t live here. This isn’t a house. It’s not even an apartment.”

“Believe me, it is only temporary,” he insisted. “The people I lived with
—
they got transferred and had to move. I had no place to sleep. I could
not
stay at the college because I did
not
sign up for a dormitory room. Besides
,
the dormitory costs more than I can afford.”

“So Gail gave you a key and said you could stay here for a while?”

“Yes. You guessed it.” He nodded. “She has been very kind to me. She would let me stay at her apartment. But it would not look good.”

“So you’ve been living here for a while?”

“I was sleeping in my van and taking showers here when I worked here. But after I got fired, Gail said I could stay if I didn’t tell anyone.” His forehead wrinkled. “I hope she is not mad at me. She told me to only come in the back door when the club is empty.” He gave me a reproachful look. “No car is out there tonight. So I thought it was empty. You scared me.”

“
Marco
, you can’t stay here anymore.”

His shoulders slumped in defeat. “Are you going to tell on Gail?”

Bob had enough on his mind. And
Marco
staying here hadn’t hurt anything
,
really. “I’m not sure. Not right now.”

“So I will move my things back out to my van.” He turned and walked away.

When he was gone, I picked up my cell phone and made a quick call. “Mama, I know it’s late, but I need to rent a cabin for the night.” I quickly explained the situation to her.

“We have a couple of empty cabins he can choose from, but you won’t be paying,” she said firmly.

“Just for tonight,” I agreed. “Then we’ll figure something out.”

*****

The next morning, I hurried over to Stafford Cabins as soon as I knew Mama and Daddy would have the office opened.

The front office was deserted when I walked in.

“Good morning,” Daddy called. “We’re in the back.”

I stepped down the tiny hall to the little break area Mama had fixed up. They were sitting at the table drinking coffee. And holding hands.

I blushed. Would Alex and I still be that much in love after that many years? I had a feeling we would.
He was due back from the conference on Saturday.
I made a mental no
te to
call him later and tell him how much I looked forward to growing old with him
.
That done, I turned my attention back to my parents.
“You really shouldn’t just call out for anyone to come on back,” I scolded. “I could have been an ax murderer.”

“I suppose you could have,” Daddy said thoughtfully
, looking at Mama
. “But I thought we raised her better than that, didn’t you,
Elizabeth
?”

Mama nodded, never missing a beat. “Of course, if you were an ax murderer, dear
.
 
.
 
.
it really wouldn’t matter whether we invited you in or not, would it?”

I sighed. “Never mind.”

“Tell us about
Marco
.”

“Yes. He was up at dawn, sweeping the office porch and straightening the deck chairs,” Daddy said.

I smiled, because I could see him doing that. “Well, you know, he came here as an exchange student in high school then managed to get his paperwork to stay on for college. With a limited work visa, he’s living on very little money. He was living with a sponsor family, but the husband was transferred to
Little Rock
, which left
Marco
homeless.”

“Oh my. Bless his heart,” Mama said.

I nodded. “He’s been sleeping at the
c
lub and just eating what he gets at the diner. But he needs a place where he can study and relax.” I looked at them and chose my words carefully. I wanted to be sure they knew that helping
Marco
was something I wanted to do. Not something I wanted them to do.

They were staring at each other without speaking. It was one of those looks
that made me feel as if there was
a conversation going on that I wasn’t
a
part of.

I continued, “I was thinking that maybe I could pay a reduced fee for one of the cabins. I know you sometimes do a weekly rate
,
and I’ve even seen you offer a monthly rate to a few—”

“Hush, dear, so we can think,” Mama said sweetly.

I hushed.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked Daddy, her eyes sparkling.

He nodded. “It’s an answer to a prayer. Cabin
40
.”

I just stared at them. “We don’t have forty cabins.”

Mama laughed. “You remember
c
abin
40
. We named it that because it’s out in the back forty.” She sipped her coffee and grinned at my still puzzled expression. “In other words, it’s so far from the office we got more complaints than it was worth. So when a storm blew a tree across the porch a couple of years ago, we just moved the tree and closed the cabin.”

Daddy picked up the story. “We were just talking yesterday about what we were going to do with it. There was some damage to the porch, but the cabin is livable. We can have power hooked back up with no trouble. To pay for his keep,
Marco
can clean it and work on the porch as he has time. After he finishes that, if he still needs a place to live, we’ve got plenty of other jobs that need doing.”

I frowned. “So you really do want the cabin fixed up?”

Mama nodded. “We’ve tried to figure out what to do with it.”

“It was sweet of you to want to help him, honey,” Daddy said. “But a man needs to earn his own way when he can. Keeps his character strong.”

“A hand up is much better than a handout,” Mama agreed.

I smiled at them and gave them each a hug. “I’ll go tell
Marco
the great news.”

*****

I didn’t have to be at work at the athletic club until three, so after I made
Marco
’s day, I decided I would do what I had promised Debbie and go visit Lisa at Bob and Wilma’s.

I pulled into the circular driveway in front of the elegant split
-
level
glass and cedar house. Wilma answered the doorbell. She seemed genuinely happy to see me. When I told her why I was there, she ushered me up the wide oak stairway and to Lisa’s barely
opened bedroom door. I turned to ask Wilma if she wanted to go in and tell Lisa I was there. But before I could say a word, she’d retreated down the stairs.

I tapped on the door
,
and it opened under my knuckles. My guess was that the room hadn’t changed since Lisa was a little girl. A pink ruffled bedspread covered the bed underneath the white canopy. It made me think of Barbie’s bedroom. And there was Barbie, um, Lisa
,
in bed propped up on some pillows, a romance novel in her hand.